Thursday, October 28, 2010

The official start to fall...

The girls begged me to buy a pumpkin the other day. Actually, they've been begging since the pumpkins appeared in the grocery stores. I finally gave in. But not to carve scary faces....to roast it! I've never cared for jack-o-lanterns, and the girls don't either. But we love pumpkin pie and pumpkin bread! And I'm going to attempt pumpkin cheesecake this time, too!

♥

So anyway, I googled "how to roast a pumpkin", just to make sure I could remember how. As I was cutting the pumpkin in half, Kitty was all excited. When the two halves fell open on the table, she looked disappointed. She said, "There's not a pie in it!" Hahahaha! No, sweetheart, there isn't. We have to make the pie ourselves. ☺ I discovered that I didn't have two baking dishes large enough to hold the halves of the pumpkin, so I had to roast one half at a time. Next time, I will choose a smaller pumpkin. In the first picture, the half on the right is done, and waiting to be scooped. The half on the left is waiting to go in the oven. Excuse my messy stove.

So after about three hours total roasting time, lots of scooping, chopping and pureeing....I ended up with only seven cups of packed pumpkin. And a very messy kitchen. Still working on getting it all cleaned up.

And after the second half of the pumpkin was roasted, I turned up the heat and roasted the seeds! Because we love roasted pumpkin seeds! They're gone now. Well, they're almost gone. Hubby is going on a trip today, and he's taking the rest with him. So, as far as the girls and I are concerned, they're gone.